Artefacts from the 18th century found under Nuneaton street

Archaeologists are in town as part of the Transforming Nuneaton programme.

Archaeologists who have been excavating Abbey Street in Nuneaton have unearthed artefacts from hundreds of years ago.

The team are in the town as part of the Transforming Nuneaton programme.

The Edinburgh based Headland Archaeology excavated three archaeological trial trenches at the Abbey Street Car Park.

A spokesman for Headland Archaeology said: “Archaeological remains were found to survive relatively frequently, generally in the form of shallow wall footings and occasional negative features, present at the interface between natural geology and the overlying made ground overburden.

“In trench three there were indications of a thicker archaeological horizon, comprising the remnants of former soils surviving in a deeper part of the trench in areas undisturbed by cellaring.

“Spot dates from pottery recovered from trenches one and three indicate a late 18th/early 19th century date which is consistent with the presence of structures shown on first edition Ordnance Survey mapping.

“There is a background of low level prehistoric and Romano-British activity in the general environs of the site, but no specific known potential, an Anglo-Saxon settlement was established by the ninth century but there is little recorded evidence of archaeological remains from this period.’’

Abbey Street is thought to have formed a route connecting medieval settlement in Nuneaton to the Benedictine Priory of St Mary to the north-west of the site.